Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/248

234 He could feel her tremble.

"Oh—you—startled me so," she said, in a weak voice.

"I was a brute. I ought to have thought. I might have known that coming up behind you, suddenly, in that way—I might have known that it would frighten you. But I was so surprised, so glad, to see you, I never thought of anything except to overtake you. But there—there,"—soothingly,—"don't feel badly any more. Why, you are trembling from head to foot. Oh, and it was I—it was I who made you."

"I suppose I am very silly. I ought to have known your voice. But it was so sudden," she explained; and at the recollection a new tremor swept over her, and her grasp upon his arm tightened.

"But you are still trembling," he protested. "You—you are not afraid of me any more?"

She looked up at him again, with great, wondering, reproachful eyes. "Afraid of you!" she cried. And in the intonation of those three words he read all that he longed to know. "Afraid of you!" Such scorn of the idea, such astonishment that he could have entertained it, such complete, unquestioning trustfulness, as the tone indicated, could have been inspired by no other sentiment than the love he wished for.

The violent beating of his heart, the whirl of his senses, made it impossible for him to speak. They were standing in the open street: it would not do for him to obey his impulse and fold her in his arms. He covered her hand with his, and pressed it, while he strove to master his agitation.

"Why," she said, softly, "you—it is you who are trembling now."

"Yes I can't help it I love you so, Denise."

He felt her fingers close upon his arm.

"Denise"

"Yes?"

"Do—do you—care anything—for me?"

Silence.

"Denise—won't you—tell me?"

"Oh, how—oh, why do you make me say it? You must know I do."

Presently, after some further speech between them, which, though to themselves of vital interest and importance, would most likely pall upon the reader,—so obvious, so sentimental, so tautological, it was,—presently he vouchsafed the information that he had loved her from the very beginning of their acquaintance; that he had become enamoured of her at first sight.

Why, then, she wondered, had he waited so long about telling her so?

He explained that the fear of rejection had tied his tongue.

And if—if it hadn't been for this accidental encounter in the street, he would have gone away from Paris, back to New York—he would have left her in that way, without letting her know at all? Oh!